Wiyot Tribe Celebrates Return of Ancestral Digawututklh Lands
Press release from the Friends of the Dunes:
Digawututklh dreamy shot photo credit Friends of the Dunes
The Wiyot Tribe and Friends of the Dunes are excited to announce the official return of the historically significant Digawututklh land back to the Wiyot Tribe. This momentous occasion was commemorated with a private ceremony and celebration held on Wednesday, November 13, 2024. Digawututklh includes a 357-acre property that has been managed over the past four years as the Samoa Dunes & Wetlands Conservation Area by the nonprofit organization Friends of the Dunes. This land return is an important step in honoring the Wiyot Tribe’s heritage and commitment to environmental stewardship. “Wiyot people have a deep connection with this place, traditionally the Tribe had villages throughout the Samoa peninsula, this place is incredibly special to us,” said Hazel James, Wiyot Councilwoman.
Digawututklh Clouds photo credit Suzie Fortner
Wiyot people have a profound connection to their ancestral lands, a bond that has been disrupted by settler colonialism and exacerbated by decades of extractive practices. In response to these historical injustices, the Wiyot Tribe is actively engaged in restoring balance through Dishgamu Humboldt, a tribally controlled community land trust. As the Community Land Trust of the Wiyot Tribe, Dishgamu Humboldt is the next step on this journey. Named after the Soulatluk word for love, Dishgamu Humboldt is designed to facilitate the return of Wiyot ancestral lands to Wiyot stewardship, putting land in trust for the purposes of affordable housing creation, workforce development, and environmental and cultural restoration. “We use the Soulatluk word for love as the name of the Tribe’s land trust because the work we are doing is steeped in Wiyot values of commitment, responsibility and caring for this place. The Tribe has plans for ecocultural restoration, returning the land to good health through the environmental restoration of the land as well as the return of Cultural practices which are intrinsic to the health of the land as well as the people of the Tribe,” Michelle Vassel, Tribal Administrator, stated. According to Ted Hernandez, Wiyot Tribal Historic Preservation Officer, “to the Wiyot people our traditional lands have a sacred spirit, Digawututklh connected Shou’r to Wigi where Tuluwat is the heart, and Digawututklh is the lungs, it breathes life into our ceremonies.”
The Digawututklh property is uniquely characterized by its diverse ecosystems, including open dunes, an extensive coastal forest, seasonal wetlands, and estuarine habitats. The land includes access to Wigi (Humboldt Bay) and Shou’r (the Pacific Ocean) and features many acres of coniferous forest dominated by shore pine and Sitka spruce–the southernmost extent of this forest assemblage in the world. “Digawututklh provided for Wiyot people, and Wiyot people cared for it, plants like huckleberries that grow there were tended by Wiyot people and the dunes protected the villages from harsh weather due to the dunes being so large, they provided shelter,” explained Ted Hernandez, Wiyot Tribal Historic Preservation Officer. This coastal region is renowned for its rich biodiversity, providing habitat for various plant and animal species, including migratory birds and endangered species. “This place has traditionally been used for food harvesting such as clams and surf fish, it was also a ceremonial place where the red woodpecker dance was held, now that the land has been returned these cultural practices can return,” said Brian Mead, Wiyot Tribal Chair. “Digawututklh was also part of a vast traditional transportation system, this village was a place where people came from the north to catch Redwood dugouts to get to other locations such as Tuluwat, Jourijiji and other sites,” Brian Mead, Wiyot Tribal Chair.
Tour at Digawututklh photo credit Jane Cipra
“We are so grateful to be a part of the conservation story for this very special place, and I couldn’t think of a better way to begin the next chapter,” said Suzie Fortner, Friends of the Dunes Executive Director. “As the interim land manager, Friends of the Dunes has connected our community with the diverse and dynamic coastal habitats on this formerly private property. We’ve been inspired by the abundance of native plants and animals thriving here, by the plethora of mushrooms that emerge after the rain each fall, and by the impressive amount of wildflowers that bloom each spring. I’m equally inspired by the current land back efforts in California and grateful that our state agencies have supported this land return project here in Humboldt County. The Wiyot Tribe is the perfect recipient of this property for long-term management, and I know both the community and the environment will benefit from the Wiyot Tribe’s ongoing work of ecological and cultural restoration.”
In October 2020, Friends of the Dunes assumed temporary ownership of the land with the goal of transferring the property for long-term conservation management. “I am deeply inspired and overjoyed by the return of 357 acres to the Wiyot Tribe.” remarked Carla Avila-Martinez, Friends of the Dunes Board Member. “This land back is a small but powerful act of justice, acknowledging that the land was unjustly stolen and rightfully belongs to the Wiyot people. Indigenous stewardship has always been integral to the health of ecosystems. Returning ancestral lands is the most impactful climate action that can be taken. This milestone is just the beginning, and much more must be done. We are committed to supporting the Wiyot Tribe’s ongoing efforts to restore their ancestral lands.”
Digawututklh Parabolic Dune photo credit Ashley Osia
Friends of the Dunes and the Wiyot Tribe would like to thank their many conservation partners who supported the acquisition of this property and the transfer to the Wiyot Tribe: California State Coastal Conservancy, California Natural Resources Department, Wildlife Conservation Board, California Department of Fish and Wildlife, US Fish and Wildlife Service, Humboldt Bay National Wildlife Refuge, Bureau of Land Management, Humboldt Bay Harbor Recreation and Conservation District, Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office, Pacific Birds Joint Venture, Ducks Unlimited, and the Peninsula Community Collaborative.
For more information, please visit https://www.wiyot.us/ or https://www.friendsofthedunes.
org/.
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We still have problems with some of those settler families. They havnt changed their behavior much. They still think they are intitled to do whatever they want.
You have dirt on them? Please tell.
Beachfront magacasino?
Ah yes, “settler colonialism” along with “time immemorial” are key marketing phrases of todays tribal industrial complex.
even a Costco employee can see how traumatic colonialism must have been, how conflicted current occupation is, and so on and on..
But why little mention in these circles regarding migrant settlers of today?
it doesn’t matter because they have browner skin?
do current tribal bureaucracies oppose todays million man immigration policies by liberals and corporations?
if settlement was “bad” when white people did it,
should it still be bad when it’s done today under the democrat mantra of “nation of immigrants”?
people love to blame the good old boys, but don’t forget that NDN’s were the original good old boys, and a locals first mentality should always rule
Surely you can detect the difference between an outside culture coming in and seizing control of the land by force, ultimately entirely displacing the prior residents and eliminating their culture, and people coming into an area and joining in the activities of the extant population.
Yes, but I’m looking at it 200 years down the line.
and I’m pretty sure most Americans never wanted or voted for mass immigration/migration/todays settler colonialism.
it was never voted on, it has always been subversive to established orders and is a potential affront to a established citizenry
of course, todays immigrants like the freed slaves of americas past, are a boon to capitalist employers, so convenient to have international laborers supplanting Americans, for 50 years or so, but things change and cultures change.
its always safest not to risk creating scenarios where rival cultures both claim the same territory.
this is the fate in some societies when multiculturalism sours for one reason or another.
that’s also why in multicultural societies, I think it’s best to minimize differences between groups, rather than exacerbate them like we are doing in America.
for multiculturalism to work long term, I suggest that people must essentially cross breed and significantly integrate to avoid skin color identification based not on bioregion, but on race as invented by scientists.
at least tribes are bioregional, I respect that,
race has little meaning of service in todays world
Yet, tribalism is the authentic version of race!
so it’s always interesting to consider that even European Americans lived through centuries of tribalism in our own cultures in our own genealogical homelands, long before our induction into the first revolutions in metallurgy.
no apologies though, I always push back when people use the ideological sales pitch “settler colonialism”.
it’s happening today to,
by numbers of settlers never seen in the gold rush
critique that
Critiques aren’t hard to come by for that disjointed telling of americas history. This country, and in a slightly wider geographical and historical lense, this whole hemisphere has been experiencing steady flows of heavy migration punctuated by periodic floods for it’s entire modern history.
In the case of the US, it is quite literally the defining feature of our culture as distinct from the myriad parent cultures we point to as well as all other extant national cultures. We are a nation with no official language, an explicit prohibition on government preference for any one religion, and a long history of mashing diverse cultures together and calling the chimera our own. We are, in the sort of mythologies that shape a culture if not always in practice, a meritocracy that invites anyone ambitious, clever, and hard working enough to come to the marketplace and take their shot at achieving their dream.
The contemporary mass migration of central and south Americans and carribean people is just the next chapter in the long book of immigrants coming in chunks to find a new life here. We’ve successfully integrated them all so far, and I’m pretty confident we can keep doing it.
If they start showing up with superior force and actively displacing Americans and establishing their own colonies and states then your analogy will be worth it’s pixels
Exactly……they use the victimization of the tribes to steal land and the tribes fall for it everytime. Totally ridiculous.
What crap!!!
While the Friends of the Dunes remove vegetation, wetlands collapse, wildlife disappears and erosion is out of control.
The spine of our paleo dunes, thousands of years old, just NW of where Sierra Pacific was, has now blown out, and sands are about to enter eastward into the slough.
This is criminal-level “restoration,” benefitting NO living thing, just satisfying biofascists grim imagination.
The ill-named “Friends” of the Dunes have destroyed well over half of their wildlife habitats,
diminished by far their Base Flood Elevations, and have secured their place as the most detrimental environmental groups in the World.
Audit the pretentious SOBs.
Congratulations Wiyot Tribe. This is beautiful space!
Complete contrivance. Destroys the hydrology, fragments the habitats
and exposes just how insensitive we can be to our wildlife, our migratory birds
and any hint of resilience.
“Pacific Birds Joint Venture” You cannot simultaneously drain coastal wetlands
and pretend to be a friend of Pacific birds.
Anyone, do they have a spokesperson? This is fraud.
Ppl are too stupid these days to see the obvious and in to being victims to see the truth. These are land grabs and the tribes fall for it every time…..SMH.
long live Dead Man’s Drop
Be a goon on your own, If Hobart knew of the damages, he’d be the first to say
that the course would be altered.
The democrat party always plays on the tribes victimization so they can take land and make it to where no one can use it. These tribes are not smart enough to know they are being played and the land is being taken to where no one but the government can use it because it is “protected”. Huge scam and land grabs.
The dunes such a fabled room where cameras adore mauve perfume.
This is all satire. No one will stop giant destructive wind mills in the ocean . The land is probably going to be used to run power lines right through the site.
Is anyone friends of the oceans???